BoomKids
by zmkuzma
Summary: I am the eye. I see the back and the forward. I've seen you die, and I will see your birth. You, my friend, are trapped. Would you like to know what it's like to be free? Let me show you a story, then... This Story is for you.
1. The Eye

...You are trapped. Your Mondays follow Sundays. You count seconds. You remember the past, and you strategically try to manipulate your future through your present. You may not realize that you are trapped, but then you may not realize that someone like me exists either.

For now, you will see what I see and you will move how I move. In the moments that I talk to you, you will know what it's like to be free. From where I watch, time is an art gallery and each instance is a display. I can linger, or I can skip it without a glance. I see the seeds of an era being planted. I see the fruit that those seeds have become. The order is mine to choose. There is only one rule that I follow in my endeavors: look but do not touch. Do you consider that a waste? My trapped friend, I am the eye.

Sit back. Let me carry you through a story. Just for you, I will separate certain events from eternity, and I will provide a beginning, a middle, and an end. This task may seem simple enough, but I have come to respect "time" as a continuous entity from which no events or people are isolated. Everything has a relationship -- nothing is independent of itself. Telling a story could potentially shatter this faith because it would suggest that only one particular instance, or collection of instances, is unique. Your listening is similarly dangerous, although I would argue that not much is at stake for you. You are already trapped. But still, I have ways to get around these dilemmas.

There remain certain things that I do not understand despite my ability to see them over and over from an infinite number of perspectives. In truth, there is only one last perspective that I have left to explore: yours. Trapped or not, this story is for you...


	2. The Man

...This is not the beginning.

There is a man sitting on a bus. He isn't especially fascinating. He is a simple man with simple thoughts and a pretty standard outlook on life. His face is blank and his clothes are dark. His forehead is pressed against a window whose surface is black from the night passing by outside. He is bent over, shielding something away from the rest of the world. There, safely in the palm of his hand, he is holding a universe. Whenever any eyes linger on him, or whenever a body sits down close by, he stealthily slips it away into his back pocket.

It is his universe to watch over, to protect, or to destroy. And he will decide when the right time will be to reveal it...


	3. The Hand

...This instance is vague. There is no reasoning of it, and there are no words that can accurately describe it. So now you know. What I will show you here is an utter failure. Remember... I'm the eye. Do you see what I see? The black sky stepping aside. Smooth contours of space suddenly stretching and bending over the outline of a hand. Clouds parting as that hand descends into the atmosphere. Land eerily dark and sky closer than it should be.

I don't wonder if they could feel that hand pressed against their skin as it gently placed itself onto Earth's face. I don't wonder because I see it right now. I am there, looking into the same sky as them, asking the same questions, and transforming in the same way. Can you see it now?

I do...


	4. Twilight

...Something had happened in the city of Marshank. There was no sound. There was no flash. It seemed like a normal December evening. There was just this subtle subconscious feeling which crept into their minds and caused them to ponder.

Some were asleep at the time, and some chose to disregard the feeling. For a select few, however, this tickle produced an instinct: look into the night sky for an answer. They didn't know why they looked up, and they didn't ask why. They just suddenly felt the urge to search into the stars for the answer to a subconscious question which they didn't really ask. What they found was more.

Something in the night sky had caused an inexplicable change in them. A seed was planted. For some, roots that existed in a world beyond reality sprang through the mind at an exponential rate. For others, the seed lay dormant, waiting for nourishment. Though they looked the same and seemed to act the same, something had made these individuals different from the rest of humanity...


	5. Declaration

...Thunderstorm. Rain patters against the windows, and cracks of loud thunder cause little children to run into their parents' bedrooms for comfort.

I see a neighborhood three miles north of central Marshank. The campus of an urban university sits down the road. A police station glows up ahead at the intersection. Vacant lots and abandoned buildings plot the area. Drug addicts squat the broken houses.

It is the morning but still dark. The neighborhood is quiet. Raindrops glisten as they float past the glow of street lamps. I see it now. This is an eerie standstill. The vast emptiness of this place makes it darker. I only see one, and he is not a man. He is a figure. An image of the night.

The figure stands in the middle of the intersection. Right by the police station. He stands there in the rain unfazed by the weather.

The only sound that resonates through the pattering rainfall and the lull of thunder is the control box that clicks with the change of the traffic lights.

_Click_. The rain is green.

_Click_. Yellow.

_Click._ Red.

Watch the figure now. Its head is arching backward. Facing the sky. Look at what he does. He opens his mouth. And then, from a pit of unknown depth and pain, he screams otherworldly. I know this sound. It is the sound of something dying. A declaration that the end has come. Do you see what I see? Or, better yet, do you hear it?

The sound that life is over...


	6. Watering

...I can see many things now. The scream has caused them all. It ripples through the rain and about the city, leaving almost nothing untouched. It's loud. It hurts. I feel it. Street lights don't shine anymore. The traffic signal no longer morphs the rain's color. Car alarms roll through the streets from every direction, and people everywhere wake in fear. I see cracks and splintering everywhere. The sound of crystal breaking against earth like innumerable bells.

In a small house many miles away, I see something else too. He is a kid, not old or young. He abruptly awakens to painful throbs drumming away at the inside of his forehead. He sits up in his bed and reaches to his face. I watch him touch a warm, sticky liquid leaking from his nose. He recognizes it immediately.

Blood, he thinks, what the hell happened...?


	7. The Radius

...It's true. My sight is broad. I see beyond skin and blood. All and nothing float before me and pour into my retina. Thought. Sound. Everything. This is what it's like to be free. Do you enjoy it?

I see rain drying from pavements as the morning sun casts its first glance over Marshank. People rise from sleep if they were not awake before. They move through their homes in shock and find that their neighbors have done the same. The incident that has swept through their possessions effects them all, leaving equal shares of confusion and awe in a splendid wake. They turn on their radios and listen for answers. I see it now:

_...uncanny just scratches the surface toward explaining the events here in Marshank city. Around one o' clock in the morning, police stations were flooded with neighborhood and household reports that every piece of glass in the citywide area had been shattered. What was unknown to those reporting was that police stations themselves had suffered from the same strange circumstances. Dishes, mirrors, car windows, street lamps, and television monitors are just a small number of items that were labeled to be shattered as a result of this freakish happening. Prescription lens users found that they could not see. Hospitals initiated numerous transfers and reported several cases of fatal accidents as a result of the shattering. Injured people are turning up every minute. Broken glass is everywhere! Police worked overnight to find a pattern within these numerous reports and they soon discovered an incredible thirty-five mile radius within which no piece of glass remained intact. The center of this circle is reported to be somewhere near Foundation College and police are questioning residents in the area at the moment. There are currently no leads as to what could have possibly happened, but some have hinted at the possibility of a terrorist attack. Other cities across the country are already talking precautions and a statement is going to be issued from the White House within the hour. More still to come from Marshank. This is John Matthews reporting live..._


	8. Birth

...The ground is clean now. The clear dust of an instant swept away in a month. I see ease and normalcy begin to return to the faces of those who walk the streets, but there are questions still lingering without logical answers.

The investigation still goes nowhere. FBI and local police scratch their heads. They see nothing, but I do.

I see a newspaper upon a kitchen counter. The newsprint lies facing open toward the ceiling. Upon the page, a heading in bold reads, "OBITUARIES." Its black ink weighs onto the grey page with equality:

_HARPER_

_Jack J., suddenly on Mon. Aug. 14, age 18, beloved son of Jason and Marissa Harper. Missed deeply by friends and family. Open invitation to Funeral Service Aug. 21, 11a.m. at F. Gerald Grandly Funeral Home, 764 Lanister Drive, Marshank, XX 191XX..._


	9. The Recruit

...Later still. I see a sun high in the sky. Leaves are brown, red, and orange. Garbage scrapes the ground as the wind blows. Here. There. Rubber soles drag along the ground. I see someone. His jacket is black. A dark hat's bill sticks out low. It points to the ground. His eyes unseen to all but me.

Leisure. He sits upon a bench that faces a parkway. Marshank is Marshank to him. He sees nothing.

From his pocket, he removes two discoveries. One he sticks into his mouth and the other he uses to light its white end. He slides his hands into his pockets. I watch him exhale, and I see the smoke from his mouth rise slowly, vanishing into invisibility. He watches his own breath and imagines his life ending second by second. When he gets bored of it, he looks back to the parkway before him. Next to him, I see a voice materialize from a figure standing close by.

Xavier, it says, I need a huge favor from you. The young man that was just voice before sits down. He shields himself from the wind with a grey hood that loosely fits over his head.

The dark bill stays in its place, but unseen eyes roll toward the speaker. What do you want, Shockey?

I followed you here after class. I see Shockey turn his head so that the opening of his hood tunnels out to the world. Xavier is at its end. Smoke rises perpetually from his mouth. I knew you had this free period, so this was the best time to talk with you.

Xavier shakes his head. Why...? Are you here to bother me about smoking...? I deal with people every day, Shockey. I don't need anyone else to spit at me about right and wrong.

I don't care about that, Shockey breathes. I've known you for a long time. I know that you don't deserve any moral lectures from anyone.

The grey smoke saturates Xavier's vision. He is blind for an eternity, but in the next instant he can see.

I need you to come to a meeting after school, says Shockey. I've already invited a few people, and you're the last one I need to get to come.

You're withholding too much information, Shockey, Xavier yawns. What kind of meeting is this...?

Shockey closes his eyes. The bulge of his cornea rotates freely under the skin of his eyelid. Though he too is trapped, Shockey's vision extends far. He sees more with those closed eyes than what many could even possible imagine with complete alertness. He opens them.

I can't tell you the details right now. There's not enough time, and there's too much at stake. I _can_ tell you that we're not gonna be talking about some idle school club or activity. I'll answer any questions you have at the meeting. This is extremely important, Xavier... I need you there.

Xavier sits quiet. He lifts his hat just enough so that his eyes can meet Shockey's. I see red ribbons tracing through the whites of his eyeballs like spiderwebs.

Tell me when and where, Xavier says. If it was anyone else, I would probably say no, but you managed to incite my interest...


End file.
